A judge in Brazil has sided with the federal government and reversed earlier judicial suspensions of new rules governing the meal voucher market, according to the court ruling made public on Tuesday.
The contested regulation originated in a government decree issued in November that sets limits on the fees merchants pay to voucher providers. Earlier this year, local courts granted orders that suspended the effects of the new system for the sector's principal companies, creating a temporary legal reprieve for those providers.
With Tuesday's ruling, those suspensions have been overruled and the decree's provisions are back in force. The office of Brazil's solicitor general issued a statement welcoming the decision and said companies must resume complying with the new rules immediately.
Two of the companies named in the original court actions were Ticket, part of Edenred's operations in the country, and Pluxee. Ticket said it would not comment because it had not been formally notified of the ruling at the time of the statement. Pluxee did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The ruling also affects local firms Alelo and VR, which, together with Ticket and Pluxee, account for about 85% of the Brazilian meal voucher market.
The restored decree caps the charges merchants incur when accepting vouchers issued by these providers. The immediate practical effect of the judge's decision is to remove the temporary legal obstacles that had delayed implementation of the fee controls, and to put the leading companies in the sector back under the ceiling established by the government.
The ruling re-establishes national regulatory control over contract terms between merchants and voucher issuers, requiring those firms to align operations with the capped-fee structure specified in the November decree. The solicitor general's office explicitly framed the ruling as a mandate for prompt compliance by the affected companies.
Beyond the immediate legal reversal, the decision clarifies the regulatory position for merchants, voucher providers, and other market participants, though some companies have indicated they had not yet received formal notification of the court outcome.